Where do the tactics, strategies, and lifestyles of today's activists come from? Many ways of doing radical politics pioneered by Movement for a New Society in the 1970s and 1980s have become central to anti-authoritarian social movements: consensus decision making, spokescouncils, communal living, unlearning oppressive behavior, and co-operatively owned businesses. Andrew Cornell's important contribution to US political history uses this story to raise crucial questions for activists today. Oppose and Propose is an engaging and accessible study, every page offers new insights. Andrew Cornell's work appears in Letters from Young Activists and The University Against Itself. He helps produce the quarterly anti-capitalist magazine Left Turn.
Neoliberal capitalism positions us all as consumers in a hypermarket where money talks. For the majority of people around the globe, this translates as precarity and immiseration. But how can we break from this dominant ideological framework? Expose, Oppose, Propose details how, since the mid 1970s, transnational alternative policy groups (TAPGs) have functioned as think tanks of a different sort, generating resources for a globalization from below in dialogue with the critical social movements that are protagonists for global justice. Based on two years of intensive research, William Carroll not only provides a detailed examination of a variety of TAPGs – showing how each group is distinctive and autonomous in its vision, practical priorities, and ways of producing and mobilizing alternative knowledge – but also reveals how TAPGs form a master frame that advocates and envisages global justice and ecological wellbeing.
Neoliberal capitalism positions us all as consumers in a hypermarket where money talks. For the majority of people around the globe, this translates as precarity and immiseration. But how can we break from this dominant ideological framework? Expose, Oppose, Propose details how, since the mid 1970s, transnational alternative policy groups (TAPGs) have functioned as think tanks of a different sort, generating resources for a globalization from below in dialogue with the critical social movements that are protagonists for global justice. Based on two years of intensive research, William Carroll not only provides a detailed examination of a variety of TAPGs – showing how each group is distinctive and autonomous in its vision, practical priorities, and ways of producing and mobilizing alternative knowledge – but also reveals how TAPGs form a master frame that advocates and envisages global justice and ecological wellbeing.
The first part of this open access book sets out to re-examine some basic principles of trade negotiation, such as choosing the right representatives to negotiate and enhancing transparency as a cure to the public's distrust against trade talks. Moreover, it analyses how the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for the Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) might impact on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership's (RCEP) IP chapter and examines the possible norm setters of Asian IP. It then focuses on the People's Republic of China's (PRC) trade and IP strategy against the backdrop of the power games between the PRC, India and the US. The second part of the book reflects on issues related to investor–state dispute settlement and its relationship with IP, such as how to re-calibrate the balance in international investment arbitration, and whether compulsory license of IP constitutes expropriation in India, the PRC and select ASEAN countries. The third part of the book questions and strives to improve some of the proposed IP provisions of CPTPP and RCEP and to redefine some aspects of international IP norms, such as: pre-grant patent opposition and experimental use exception; patent term extension; patent linkage and data exclusivity for the pharmaceutical sector; plant variety protection; pre-established damages for copyright infringement; and the restructuring of copyright limitations in the public interest. The open access edition of this book is available under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 licence on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Applied Research Centre for Intellectual Assets and the Law in Asia, School of Law, Singapore Management University.
A bracingly provocative challenge to one of our most cherished ideas and institutions Most people believe democracy is a uniquely just form of government. They believe people have the right to an equal share of political power. And they believe that political participation is good for us—it empowers us, helps us get what we want, and tends to make us smarter, more virtuous, and more caring for one another. These are some of our most cherished ideas about democracy. But Jason Brennan says they are all wrong. In this trenchant book, Brennan argues that democracy should be judged by its results—and the results are not good enough. Just as defendants have a right to a fair trial, citizens have a right to competent government. But democracy is the rule of the ignorant and the irrational, and it all too often falls short. Furthermore, no one has a fundamental right to any share of political power, and exercising political power does most of us little good. On the contrary, a wide range of social science research shows that political participation and democratic deliberation actually tend to make people worse—more irrational, biased, and mean. Given this grim picture, Brennan argues that a new system of government—epistocracy, the rule of the knowledgeable—may be better than democracy, and that it's time to experiment and find out. A challenging critique of democracy and the first sustained defense of the rule of the knowledgeable, Against Democracy is essential reading for scholars and students of politics across the disciplines. Featuring a new preface that situates the book within the current political climate and discusses other alternatives beyond epistocracy, Against Democracy is a challenging critique of democracy and the first sustained defense of the rule of the knowledgeable.
